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Monday, December 28, 2009

Aprillian, Ashayo and Jeppy discuss another week of playing World of Warcraft, Blizzard's great MMORPG. Contest Ongoing send an email to ctrlaltwow@gmail.com telling us how you play WoW, either as an altaholic or dealing with it in your family life to being placed in a drawing for a month free of WoW or a $10 iTunes Gift Card or an Authenticator or a Lil KT

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

[Recipe: Stormchops] Out of cooking bag. Had to go to Vengeance Landing to do the Northern Stew quest.

Got Revered with Kirin Tor and got the head enchant that BOA, sent to level56 Mage.

Doing the Argent Tournament stuff including Winter's Edge. Didn't realize I could joust any horde. Tauren's are easier to joust.Minimap now shows objectives when tracking that type of mob.Prilly dinged 60. She is a throwaway though. Thinking of transferring her to JB.

Epril dinged 78 doing Grizzly Hills quests with Aprillian. Went to Ebon Hold to train. Didn't get much new stuff.

Needed 2 more Variant seals, did the frog quest - a little tedious, but got the seals and then couldn't Squire Dan. Ended up getting in a Black Temple Raid which was amazing. Kaytis started the raid.

Went to various realms to get gifts. Visited Ardrion on Garosh. He had Ironfeather, Chimera, Thick Wolfhide & Long Tailfeathers, all grey. He was still wearing cologne.

Got Gearscore per super raider Hypknotoad. Weird to see the numbers on others.

Christmas Yeah! Went to Org to get my stuff. Had fun. Showed Vrishna my Lance on Aprilian. Hearthed back to Dal and someone pointed out that I had my lance on.

Finished some more Argent tournament stuff and got [Argent Gruntling]

Aprillian & Vrishna

Spent 5 hours trying to do the Rogue Tower quest. Apparently it's bugged. But we did get our lockpicking skills to 150 & honed our rogue skills a bit. Figured out we'll be able to guy recipe.

Did 1K Needles with Sebastian on follow. Had fun with the rogues. Then went to Charred Vale to get to Desolace. By Mon Rogues dinged 32.

Doing Christmas quests with seba & Vrinya. Got the preserved holly quest on Seb. Did the Metzen quest in Tanaris

Ashayo

Winter's Veil- Got the MerryMaker achievement on Pud. Cycling through all my alts, found that I still had mechanical yeti's and holiday wands from last year.- Plenty of red & green helper box and jingling bell. Didn't get any mini snowmen. Yet to go use my BB Gun.

Tip: Warlock life tap in shot rotation can be rank 1 and still benefit from the full effect of the glyph. I've macro'ed it so that the default is rank 1, but if I'm low on mana, holding down ALT will give the highest rank. (With thanks to Chill from Pants on Head)

Mod - SpamThrottle : Filters out repeat messages in numbered channels. Particularly good for trade chat where people spam the same thing 3 time to try to get more visibility on their demands.

Pants on Head speed Karazahn run - Zerged in under an hour (despite wiping on Chess - lol) Listen to Bind On Equip #56 for the audio.

Gearing up!- Pud spent 35 Emblem of Triumph on ring [Clutch of Fortification]. Defense is now at 567 (too high), so he needs to swap some defense gems for hit.

Crazy Train raiding- Tried going into 10 man ToC, but we don't have anywhere near enough dps. Changed plans and split up into two 5-mans to race through Ice Crown Citadel instances ; didn't quite work because Vyv was saved to heroic Forge of Souls.- Awesome "clear" of Naxxramas. Heigen Safety Dance - 16min, 44sec. Only Pud, Wemb, (ie two tanks) and two healers left for last few minutes of fight. One-shot Loatheb again with some awesome healing. Decided to try Sapphiron and KT on last raid night before Christmas. We got Sapphiron down to 15% on 1st attempt and killed on the second try. Similarly with KT - 15% on 1st attempt and down on the second. So Pud now has [Fall of Naxxramas] achievement. Woot!

Misc- First fully random pug - heroic pit of saron. Good run and won crit trinket.- Heroic Occulus is sooo much easier than it used to be, but people still just drop group if the random is Occulus.- Heroic Halls of Reflection - there is a "hide and seek" method that will surely be patched very soon.- Trying to get through Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron, Halls of Reflection on all my 80's so they can do any. Pugged some on Jekle as a healer, but couldn't quite heal HoR- Did a great few runs with Hypnotoad, Tempeste, and some other PoH'ers. First random heroic was HoR. We tried, but gave up. Then tore through Violet Hold and Halls of Lighting, getting many of the speed achievements on the way.- Badge fest with Pants on Head - did Noth as the weekly raid quest, then a bunch of random heroics for more badges and achievements - UP, AN, CoS - where we actually completed within the time limit (by less than a minute) and Wemb won the Bronze Drake. Very proud of ourselves!

Jeppy

Slow week in WoW - been a bit under the weather.

Lots of fishing / Cooking / First Aid

Alachia accused me of looking to delay my move into Northrend - hmm?

From Blade

Ahem.

Three years.Three years is quite a while, my friends... three years of the highlights and lowlights of Aprillian... her misadventures with dual, triple and even quad boxing (and if memory serves, her forced single-toon play while travelling on the train... haha)... and, of course, the final success of Aprillian dinging 80 only a year and a few months after everyone else... (/evil orc laugh)... three years of the contrast of Ashayo and his instantaneous progression (well... 'instantaneous' as compared to SOME, at any rate...)The Contra-spective of Glanthur and his EZ-Mode Alliance (just kidding, Ol' Dwarf... have a pint on me!)The addition of El' Jeppy to bridge the gap between the Horde and the Alliance (oh sure... he SAYS he's "For the Alliance"... but we all know differently...)The corruption... er... I mean INTRODUCTION of Vrishna to the game... well... we can't really say introduction, can we? He's only I'm sure been hearing about it since Aprillian started the game, such is her unbridled enthusiasm and zest for the game..."If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" eh Vrishna?

Ol' Blade finally found himself after this semester of classes with a few minutes to play... and to try to send in a contribution to the podcast...And found myself without a topic to write about after my long hiatus.

"What should I write about," said I..."What could I possibly contribute to Ctrl Alt WoW's 3-year anniversary episode?"Our good friend Lanctharus suggested mainstream pop culture and WoW... in that... how WoW has appeared in the mainstream (real life) media... an idea I really do like and one that I will address once I find enough time to give the subject the quality of research it deserves.

Then I logged on late one evening, while Ashayo in his role as a guild officer was 'cleaning house'... aka 'removing all the inactive members and promoting the active ones'... and he suggested going back to the beginning.

And so I shall.

Having logged on a number of times this winter break I have found myself repeatedly with a sense of disorientation. I have a number of level 80 characters... and a number of characters that could reach level 80 with a minimum of effort... and yet I'm uninspired.There are many things that I COULD do... I could rep-grind (I hear it's a lot easier now)... I could run a series of Heroics and get my beloved namesake rogue geared up... I could farmIf anyone has suggestions on what Ol' Blade could do that would catch my attention, I'm all ears...

But. Back to the beginning, as I said.Having no clear direction with my higher level toons, I decided (at Ashayo's advice) to go back to what brought me to Ctrl Alt WoW in the first place.

I decided to re-introduce myself to my original insanity.Tahrzaan.

Level 38 now.... Still fighting naked.... Still dual-wielding only a [Sharp Dagger] and a [Skinning Knife].... Zero talent points spent (I never DID re-spend them after they got reset a while back).... Maximum melee crit of 53 damage...... Still running on foot until he earns Exalted with Thunder Bluff (or makes enough Auction House money to buy an elephant).... The whole shebang.

Here's a screenie or three to prove how 'bushranger' I still am with him.And I shall continue to be so. And - in honor of a year's worth of contributions of The Bladed Edge to Ctrl Alt WoW, and three years of a podcast wthout peer, I will endeavor to reach level 40 by the end of the weekend.If I have enough time during the holidays, I may even catch up to Aprillian! (/evil orc laugh)

Speaking of Aprillian... here's a funny factoid: I still have more 80s than she does... and I've been away for like 6 months. True story! LOLAww... we're just teasin' ya... truth is... none of us (including me) would be quite where we are if it weren't for podcasts like Ctrl Alt WoW.

Raise a glass, my friends.To the past Three Years, and to many more besides.

As elusive as ever,

Loremaster Blade

Ahem.

Three years.Three years is quite a while, my friends... three years of the highlights and lowlights of Aprillian... her misadventures with dual, triple and even quad boxing (and if memory serves, her forced single-toon play while travelling on the train... haha)... and, of course, the final success of Aprillian dinging 80 only a year and a few months after everyone else... (/evil orc laugh)... three years of the contrast of Ashayo and his instantaneous progression (well... 'instantaneous' as compared to SOME, at any rate...)The Contra-spective of Glanthur and his EZ-Mode Alliance (just kidding, Ol' Dwarf... have a pint on me!)The addition of El' Jeppy to bridge the gap between the Horde and the Alliance (oh sure... he SAYS he's "For the Alliance"... but we all know differently...)The corruption... er... I mean INTRODUCTION of Vrishna to the game... well... we can't really say introduction, can we? He's only I'm sure been hearing about it since Aprillian started the game, such is her unbridled enthusiasm and zest for the game..."If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" eh Vrishna?

Ol' Blade finally found himself after this semester of classes with a few minutes to play... and to try to send in a contribution to the podcast...And found myself without a topic to write about after my long hiatus.

"What should I write about," said I..."What could I possibly contribute to Ctrl Alt WoW's 3-year anniversary episode?"Our good friend Lanctharus suggested mainstream pop culture and WoW... in that... how WoW has appeared in the mainstream (real life) media... an idea I really do like and one that I will address once I find enough time to give the subject the quality of research it deserves.

Then I logged on late one evening, while Ashayo in his role as a guild officer was 'cleaning house'... aka 'removing all the inactive members and promoting the active ones'... and he suggested going back to the beginning.

And so I shall.

Having logged on a number of times this winter break I have found myself repeatedly with a sense of disorientation. I have a number of level 80 characters... and a number of characters that could reach level 80 with a minimum of effort... and yet I'm uninspired.There are many things that I COULD do... I could rep-grind (I hear it's a lot easier now)... I could run a series of Heroics and get my beloved namesake rogue geared up... I could farmIf anyone has suggestions on what Ol' Blade could do that would catch my attention, I'm all ears...

But. Back to the beginning, as I said.Having no clear direction with my higher level toons, I decided (at Ashayo's advice) to go back to what brought me to Ctrl Alt WoW in the first place.

I decided to re-introduce myself to my original insanity.Tahrzaan.

Level 38 now.... Still fighting naked.... Still dual-wielding only a [Sharp Dagger] and a [Skinning Knife].... Zero talent points spent (I never DID re-spend them after they got reset a while back).... Maximum melee crit of 53 damage...... Still running on foot until he earns Exalted with Thunder Bluff (or makes enough Auction House money to buy an elephant).... The whole shebang.

Here's a screenie or three to prove how 'bushranger' I still am with him.And I shall continue to be so. And - in honor of a year's worth of contributions of The Bladed Edge to Ctrl Alt WoW, and three years of a podcast wthout peer, I will endeavor to reach level 40 by the end of the weekend.If I have enough time during the holidays, I may even catch up to Aprillian! (/evil orc laugh)

Speaking of Aprillian... here's a funny factoid: I still have more 80s than she does... and I've been away for like 6 months. True story! LOLAww... we're just teasin' ya... truth is... none of us (including me) would be quite where we are if it weren't for podcasts like Ctrl Alt WoW.

Raise a glass, my friends.To the past Three Years, and to many more besides.

As elusive as ever,

Loremaster Blade

Emails

Email #1 from Makling

happy Christmas and anniversary to the ctrlaltwow crew!

i remember starting listening to your show after i heard aprillian being interviewed on the "how i wow" podcast. it was during a time in my life when i did not have anyone to talk about wow, because the only other person then who played wow was a co-worker who had moved to another job. the show had filled that niche of having people just talk about the game and their playing. i had long since listened to other wow podcasts, but this show will always have a special place in my heart for having hosts who are down to earth and have lovable personalities.

i had just listened to our last show and i really enjoyed listening to aprilian and her adventures in the land of the 80's. im glad that despite getting into the beginnings of fine tuning your toon you still have time to enjoy the lower levels with vrishna. i almost fell to the ground when ashayo said that there was no need to do the group quests for the ogres in ogrila! talk about giving away achievements.. but then again, i guess it means i can go get the achievement on my other toons if i wanted. but for now, im content with having Makiling the Merrymaker =)

has ashayo finished the halls of reflection in heroic mode? i've found that it is harder than i thought it was, because i have yet to finish another run into that instance with a pug. those mobs really hit hard!

i had just found out that in lower levels, the lfg will take you to the instances found near the other factions! i thought it would be an awesome way to get the achievements to those places, and if you do random groups long enough, you can give your lowbie alt "the Patient" title!

i hope everyone enjoyed your holiday gifts both in game and irl. cheers to another year of ctrlaltwow!

So the patch is live!! And all I can say is one thing....busy busy busy! If nothing else can be said about this patch, it has certainly opened a door for all as the cross realm LFG system has made it possible for any toon at any level to dungeon up!! Since I have been playing (it will be two years in February) this has been one of the best things Blizzard has ever done! Whats next?? Cross faction grouping?? Why not?!?!? It has been a wonderful and challenging experience. I have been in groups that have not stopped (which as a healer kind of sucked but was also kind of exciting), groups that we were all chatty and had a great time and groups that included new 80's and we were all willing to help....WOW ROCKS!! There have only been two instances where there was a jerk in the group.

So that's it for now....I hope you all had a great holiday and as always I look forward to your podcast. Welcome Jeppy (Aljeepy, Iljeeppy,....?)...and glad that he is back!

Love to you all!

Kurly!

Email #2 from Patrick

Good afternoon guys

Just plugging away on 12/24 and just happen to hear the weather talk. Well let me tell you about weather. I am from Western NY and I survived the great blizzard of 1977 were the entire region was buried in so much snow the entire area was closed for weeks. You have not seen a proper blizzard until you seen one blow off the great lakes

Ashayo, you mentioned that Australia has great weather, but I will say that may be true, however, none of our wildlife/insects here in New York State are so venoms that they can kill you with just one bite/sting ! OOhh yea and none of our beaches have great white sharks that will eat you either!! (although we do have the random used medical waste wash up on Lake Ontario beaches)

Best regards,

Email #B from Eranth

Aprillian, Ashayo, Jeppy & Vrishnag!

Hail and well met!

Happy Anniversary with the Control - Alt - WoW podcast!

I'm going to ask the burning question: Aprillian - If you're Ms. Macintosh, why is the show called 'Control-Alt-WoW'? ;-)

I've been working the new LFG system lately as I have time. I think the one thing that may be a 'downside' to it, is how long before people will just be logging in and doing the LFG content, and not actually doing quests in the world itself? Perhaps I'm wrong, and we'll just be working LFG until Cataclysm comes out, and then the game will change again.

I heard an interesting comment the other day, and it made me think. Someone commented about how well the new dungeons led one into another, how the story flowed. They hadn't seen that sort of thing since the Death Knight starting area and quests. That made me think: Wow, do you suppose they'll put out Cataclysm at that level of thought and content, quests and stories? Won't that be keen if they do?!

At any rate, back to grinding LFG for badges for T9 gear, and Gold to re-gem from +Crit/+Agility to +AP.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

--Eranth

Beastmaster Hunter of AIE

Earthen Ring Server

MoMomoments

Hello everyone,

Hope your December has been great and which ever holiday you all celebrate was/is wonderful.

Along with everyone I have been having fun within wow, today (Saturday) we completed ICC, the new raid, well kind of ;/

We could not down the last boss. I think it was a combination of not enough dps, heals, gear, just needing more gear and other things.

But it was fun and I was able to get my first gear from the frost badges. My healer is up to 2700 spell power, working my way slowly to 3000 soon hopefully.

I am trying to do the random Heroics everyday but that does not always happen.

that I wanted to share with you all and get your opinion. I am cutting the original blog post a lot as it is really long and dont want to lose any listeners :)

In WOW the big news lately has been patch 3.3 and especially the LFG tool, looking for group tool.

Taking all of the different personalities and play styles, one needs to take into consideration that some people just do not know how to play WOW like others or they just have bad gear and are trying to gear up (and you need to remember that like it or not!). What I mean about that is that (before 3.3 and now as well) some people are good tanks some are not and same for dps and healers.

The first 2 weeks of 3.3 I really was enjoying the few times I or my guild had to use the LFG tool to pug the last dps spot or which ever spot. No issues, we are well geared and paired up with similarly geared players from other servers. Some people say hello and do not say a word after that until the last boss is down and say a goodbye. Other or chatty cathys or interact some in chat. In all the experience had been ok, I would even say to my surprise pleasant.

Until the last few days and a few pugs I was paired up with in LFG. One the tank started before I (as healer!) and one dps were loaded in to the instance; he/she was already at 50% downing the first pair of mobs and from there did not stop. I mean REALLY did not stop, for mana, food, buffs, coffee, for anything!

So to my self I was says: " REALLY!!!!" but I was willing to giving the tank the benefit of the doubt and go with the flow and after a few mobs, almost to the first boss I was able to buff the group as well as another person was able to throw their buffs and we of course sat to get our mana up at lest to 70%.

Personally with 70% as a priest healer I can pretty much heal a well geared group with no issues even on a boss. BUT....

There goes the tank onto the other group as we were not even up to 50% mana! REALLY!!!???

So from there please tell me what you would do, I really would like to know. Of course I could let the tank die and most likely wipe the group or just deal with it like I had been and heal him and try to get mana up some way.

Well I went with A, I did not heal him and just stood back, healed the dps a bit. Tank dies, and repeat it one more time just before the boss and the tank actually says: " heals?"

REALLY!?!?!?!

I usually keep myself in check but this time I could not, I say: "feel free to wait for us to get our mana up or let us know if you want to solo this place"

Was that harsh, I think not but let me know, Please.

So what happens, we all res come back mana up, buff up, and tank is waiting, waiting, we say we are ready and we are waiting.....ZZZzzzzz

REALLY!!!!

The tank asks: "ready?"

WOW! YES we are ready!

Than we continue and tank goes back rushing through the instance so I just had no choice to deal with it and left as soon as the instance was done and did not even care about the loot.

Just a few thoughts, I really would like to know what else I could have done and what you all would have done.

I could have left but in the beginning before i was locked in the instance but I don't think that is very productive; get into pug after pug and leave just because of some people basically being idiots in my opinion.

I could have just let the tank die and try to make him/her understand but that would be a waste of time as many things in life you cannot make everyone understand common sense (or at least to keep other group members in mind and not to be selfish).

So please let me know because I encountered other tanks like that and even dps in other groups that just would not wait a second for the tank. I am all for hurrying up but does it really hurt or kill you to wait a few seconds. Just like while we are all driving and I have been guilty, when we race drive, cut people off to than stop at the stop light.

I believe people are in a rush because they are trying to finish all the heroic instances to get all the badges they can each day. Also, in WOW, not just in pugs, I think game wide people just don't consider the other players in the game; many have the " me me me" mentality, just as in life. I say the people that are open minded and considerate do need to deal with it because we are not going to change peoples minds. I can not heal and let the tank or dps die but as I said that is not production and proves nothing. Perhaps for a few seconds it may satisfy you but I truly think that is not the way.

For my instances perhaps I could have said in the group chat to hold up, and I did not. I don't think that would have changed the tank or dps and how they played. But never know, I can try it the next time because I think it will get worse in some instances and I will also have more awesome LFG/pug experiences.

I hope your gaming is fun and please keep others in mind. We are all playing online with others and it is no different in real life; where you would keep a door open for a person you can also wait a few seconds for your group members or greed something that clearly should not be needed!!! oh wait that is another blog post.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Aprillian, Ashayo and Jeppy discuss another week of playing World of Warcraft, Blizzard's great MMORPG. Contest Ongoing send an email to ctrlaltwow@gmail.com telling us how you play WoW, either as an altaholic or dealing with it in your family life to being placed in a drawing for a month free of WoW or a $10 iTunes Gift Card or an Authenticator, they are back in the store.

Aprillian & Vrishna

Ashayo

Crazy Train Gluth - very pleasing to get down after several attempts at controlling the zombie chow Thaddius - Great to get him down on 2nd try Spider wing - Hyp crazy dps - 4k. Took down Anub with one insect swarm Faerlina down with 2 worshippers left Hilarity ensues with safety dance. Hyp and Grim are big negative nellies!

Jeppy

My week can be summed up in 1 word professions. Still focusing on my Alliance side I now have spread over 8 characters all the professions covered. All at 375+ except engineering (212) and Inscription (137).

I seem to be making WoW a single player experience with every move.

To make the most of rest I have given my hunters the week of and started leveling a post 60 paladin team and a mage.

Not sure why but have had an increased amount of gankage especially on the lower teams. I think it is because my playtime has been slipping from off peak to peak.

Not yet started the winters veil stuff and not 100% sure I will bother. I don't seem inspired by holidays and achievements except maybe the mental ones (loremaster, explorer etc)

Had come back for 7 days offers for several dormant accounts and plan to do it when old Grandfather Winter starts chucking out presents.

Emails

Email #1 from Makling

hey guys makiling here,

i had just listened to your show, and its really nice to hear that everyone is enjoying the new patch. as of writing, the feast of winters veil has started on our oceanic realm and i myself have started catching up on the achievements that i had missed last year. because if im getting the violet proto-drake, its going to be on my mage. so i went and did the ogrila bombing achievement using some preserved holly from last year, and did the dalaran snowman dancing. i still have to do the cooking achievements, some dungeon farming for the winter hat, and a couple more that requires running around northrend. but the holiday lasts till the new year, so i hope i get the achievement before it ends.

i had just recently done all 3 of the new heroic dungeons. i must say, seeing arthas in the halls of reflection was pretty cool, and the chase at the end of the instance sent my heart pounding as i healed my party members.

by the way, i saw that aprillian did the normal versions of POS and FOS, and i really like your new wand! were you fortunate enough not to die in the instance, or were you lost (like me) in looking for the entrance to the ice crown instances? im finding that this is a common side effect since blizzard started teleporting players to the inside of the dungeon.

ever since my druid dinged 70, i started thinking of what i would do with her heirloom shoulder and chest pieces. that is when i decided to make a new alt: a female troll rogue. but then i started buying heirloom weapons and offhand weapons! i had to stop myself because i felt i was spreading myself too thin across my toons. so i now i have her parked in razor hill, kissing the winter revelers for snowballs and mistletoe while waiting for my druid to ding 80.

thats all from me for now. looking forward to your anniversary show =)

First I want to give a HUGE shout out to these three folks whom I just spent 6+ hours doing random heroic dungeons with:

Beasly (paladin)

Bloodgiver (deathknight)

Mccavity (warlock)

all of the Bloodhoof realm. We completed so many dungeons, so many achievements, and we had a blast doing so. It's a shame they're not on the same realm as I am, and if it weren't for other social ties I would probably have done a realm transfer already (well that is if there weren't BoE's Pants on Head guild either, I'd love to transfer to there too). This new dungeon finder is such a terrific add to the game. There should be a "copy character" feature so I could play on different realms without having to re-level yet another character, or the ability to first choose what character I want to play and then which realm I wish to play it on. Though I don't think that would probably work too well.

Anyway, you all continue to put out an awesome show. I'm so sad to not hear Glanthur around anymore. I hope he doesn't end up like Blade - just leaving without a trace. I'll offer to buy him a few months of WoW time to get him back, maybe throw in a pet or two? Just because he's taking a break from WoW doesn't mean he can take a break from us, right? On the flipside it's great to listen to eljeppy and vrishna (spellings may be in error). Now we just need a show with everyone from Ctrl Alt Wow and BoE. Oh the shenanigans! Throw in those Addicted guys too. Plans for the 200th episode perhaps?

I think you all are due for another small donation too...

Email #2 from Pird

Hey there Fab Four,

Pird here just dropping you a line. Life on Jubi boobie is wonderful. Nothing like a great group of people to make the game even more fun. This week was full of new stuff. With the patch dropping there was loads to do. Loving the new instances and the LFG. Working towards the pug pet, even though I'm told that I'm terrible because I don't do what the others in the group want, but bah it's fun to sit back continue hitting things and watch the whining flow. Oh well thanks for the great show and love the new addtions. Merry Christmas to all and all a good epic drop.

Pird

Level 80 Pally Jububu Adodo server

Email #B from Blade

Greetings from the Shadows!

Upon listening to episode 145, I heard Ashayo inquire about the mailbox, auction house and bank in the sewers of Dalaran. I felt obligated to respond, if only to clarify a fact about them.They are not new. My friend... they have been down here for quite a long time now... if my memory serves me correctly, patch 3.1 had them installed.Perhaps he has been in the upper part of the city for too long that he could not see through the shadows... something I would expect from as noble and courageous a soul as Ashayo... whereas I will remain where it is that *I* feel secure... safe in a shroud of darkness, the shadows enveloping me like a protective cloak.

I remain watchful,

Ever-elusive, B

Email #C from Nevik

Greetings Ctrl Alt Wow crew,

Congratulations on your 3 year anniversary! While I might have only discovered your podcast relatively recently, you've already made me a lifelong fan. I remember that one of the first shows I listened to Aprillian was having problems with her audio levels and thought to myself "this is rubbish!"

But I stuck with it, (how could anyone not with Ashayo's sultry voice?) and now your podcast is easily one of my favorites. I love you guys and hope you never stop podcasting!

Nevik

Email # 3 from Bidkar

Subject: Misty Watered Colored Memories

Merry Christmas CtrlAltWow Crew!

Bidkar, mage, Borean Tundra here. I didn't do much on my mage this week. I just ran some of the Winter Veil quests and called it good. My paladin took a rest too. He did hit exalted with the Sons of Hodir, but it was entirely coincidental. I use him to go out there and farm for eternal fire. I just kept turning in the relics of ulduar he picked up each time and ding he got it. He also is now exalted with the Argent Crusade.

My warlock, Allerea, leveled from 61 to 70 in the last two weeks. She's in Dalaran now. I'm just doing the jewelcrafting and cooking dailies on her so she can work on her rested xp. I have spent most of my time this week dancing in Dalaran disguised as a snowman.

My hunter is out to Bloodhoof. If anybody plays on Borean Tundra, I'm that idiot tauren hunter jumping around that lake with his wolf. I think the area around Bloodhoof is the prettiest in the game. I like to go out there just to act stupid now and again. My druid is also working on his rested xp.

I'm done buying the books of Glyph Mastery. My death knight has learned all the books and just has the Northrend research to finish. I forget to do the research most of the time, so it's slow going.

I also hit my anniversary in Wow last week. I now have been playing for one year. I think I'm doing ok. I'm still having alot of fun!

You asked for some of our favorite memories of CtrlAltWow for your anniversary, so here we go.

One that sticks in my mind was Aprillian munching away on some cookies she had just baked and she explained how she buys the dough and just loved the cookies. I have a feeling she has done that more than once. Things like that give the podcast a nice and homey feeling.

A memory I have of Glanthur is when that twit said that he was childish. That was so funny because I thought just the opposite of Glanthur. I always pictured Glanthur as this sophisticated fellow sitting in his library sipping on brandy reading Moliere. Occasionally he breaks out a dwarf hunter just to see how the other half lives. Glanthur took that insult with grace and aplomb. By the way I always pictured Ashayo as Ward Cleaver in a cardigan. He seems so fatherly and patient. Since Tempest always talks about how good looking he is, I kind of evolved him into Hugh Jackman in a cardigan. I always pictured Aprillian as this carefree spirit like Cindy Lauper in the "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" video and still think of her like that, except with dreadlocks(much cooler than orange hair).

My favorite memory of Ashayo is when he gave that great tip about doing the ebonweave at the Maw of Neltharion. I didn't have the skill to make the cloth when he told that tip, but I remembered it when the time came. He always has such sage advice.

Another that sticks with me is a recent event dealing with Vrishna. I love how much he enjoys his Hand of Reckoning. I wish I received that much fun from it.

I also loved it when El Jeppy said how many alts he had. I was struck with awe. El Jeppy is my hero.

That's it for now. Thank you so much for making such a fun podcast.

I hope everybody has a nice Christmas. Aprillian, thank you for all the pictures of Christmas trees you post on Twitter. I love Christmas trees, it's so nice to see so many different ones.

For the Horde and for Glanthur

Bidkar and his alts

MoMoMoments

Hello everyone and hope everyone is staying warm and having fun in and out of game.

I have been having a great time in wow with the new instances and the new LFG. I still do not know how to look for a pug raid but that is ok I will figure it out :)

I really like the 3 new instances on regular and Heroic; it is allowing my ungeared characters to get some gear to be able to get into heroics and other places.

And of course on my priest healing has been GRRRRREAT!!!! (please read it like the tiger from the kelog commercials :))

Of course it is great when guild runs go well but LFG has been fantastic!

Being paired up with dps that is in the 3k + and tanks that can tank! what a concept!!!!

This past week I missed our guild run of 10-TOC and Onyxia because of work functions :(

Work always seems to get in my wow time, not cool!!!

But its ok they had fun and were able to complete it with little difficulty.

We have a few Shammys (dps and healing ones) that can dps in the 4k's and 5k's!!!

That is incredible !!!

So basically good times in wow for me.

I maybe opening up my 2nd account to do some fun dual boxing, as I really want to get my mage to 80, right now she is at 66

I dont know if I am alone on this but LOVE me some free mage food!!

I still for some reason have some issues running 2 wow's on my laptop, I know there has to be a way I can tweak my video car setting to allow me to do that without minimizing all the video setting in wow and to take off addons.

Ok back to work for Mo, need to place people to work!

Have a great time everyone,

Thank you as always to the Ctrl Alt Wow crew, we love your cast and attitudes.

Ctrlaltwow!

YEAH!!!

:)

-- Mo

Shout Outs & Thank You

Thanks from Soladar

Hey,

This is Solador, and I just listened to the episode and I heard I won!!! Right before the roll I was very upset for I heard that you were rolling and thus knew I would be cheated of my crappy Ashayo roll! Luckly your rolling was just as bad lol.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Aprillian, Glanthur and Ashayo discuss another week of playing World of Warcraft, Blizzard's great MMORPG. Contest Ongoing send an email to ctrlaltwow@gmail.com telling us how you play WoW, either as an altaholic or dealing with it in your family life to being placed in a drawing for a month free of WoW or a $10 iTunes Gift Card or an Authenticator, they are back in the store.

Ran Uldaman with Sebastian and Prills and then again with Sebastian, Prilly & Prills.

Groups don't lose leader or members when one logs on, stays persistent. Probably good for when the leader DC's

New Bank alt Dondea - Hot Bull

Party Leader has name tag in party chat. Stay mounted after porting to TB

New talents added to bar

Upgraded to trial BC account to do cloth rep in Silvermoon.

Made a Belf hunter to level rogue, will Belf disappear after 10 days or will I just not be able to go to Silvermoon?

New Guards in UC:

Teary eyed in the Courtyard at UC

Ashayo

3.3 stuff- no daze for levels 1-5- Everyone (over 15) can use all meeting stones- strange time to change no food/water in new toon bags, and remove attack from action bar of mage/priest/druid/warlock- Druid battle rez down to 10min from 20min- Hunter call stabled pet down to 5min from 30min. Cower finally useful - just reduces damage, rather than threat. Pets level even faster- Shadow priests get some nice buffs- Warlocks can refresh soulstones every 15 minutes. Also some nice buffs; might try affliction again- Track quest objectives on the world map- Dungeon Finder and Cross-realm groups really seemed aimed at encouraging more pugs. Loot option changes - good?- Tentative status for calendar is added- Easier to get rep. Sons of Hodir quests give more rep- 100% drop rate of Essence of Ice from Brittle Revenant in Hot and cold quest- Equipment tool-tip now includes what equipment set it is a part of!- 3 new glyphs - warlock, druid, mage

GuppersUlduar 25manShoutout to Womb for advise on warlock dpsIncreased dps from 2500 to 4500. Got rid of stopcast macro. Very happy with dps meters :)

PoHHeroic Forge of Souls- very tough with tank and 3 melee dpsPit of Saron - shoulders to replace ones from naxx previous night. Only got 1st boss down before instance servers were shutdown.

Jeppy

I played on the EU servers during the US downtime and appreciated the joy of lag free playing. I missed any of the problems on the US servers as I didn't try until Wednesday.

Funny how people don't realise that it is them all hammering the servers at the same time which causes many of the problems. I have no sympathy for those who plan raids on a major patch night as they should learn from experience.

Most of my addons worked ok. The patch gave me a chance to try out some new ones. I discovered the multibox addon Jamba had had some excellent changes made to it well worth checking out for all multiboxers http://wow.jafula.com/

Hunter levelling - Karlayne and Farlayne made it to level 70. Super fast leveling. Hit 70 in Nagrand. Alachia came and did the Ring of Blood quests. This series of 6 fights gave me over 105,000 XP and 67 gold not to mention a fine two handed axe and some potions. Best 15 minutes boost in the game?Next time I am going to grab them at level 65 and hopefully will able to boost myself.

Not sure but I might continue on in Outland and clear up other areas as this seems better than coming back for loremaster title later?

Flying at 60 has once again made the whole process super fun. I even avoid difficult tower climbs by flying in through the windows. Not particularly looking forward to being flightless on Northrend but hopefully this will be the only time thanks to Tome of Cold Weather Flying (at least on Boulderfist)

Practicing Death from Above. My hunters fire as they dismount and seem to float to the ground. Great against mobs but fantastic againt the opposition.

Double Death - mobs jump up and re die

3.3 changes which tickled me were the introduction of Haris Piltons 24 slot bag worringly called 'Portable Hole' seems the gang of BoE could discuss that further. Two new flight stops have been added (Alliance in WPL - Thondroril River / Horde at the Bulwark)

There appear to be no hostile red mobs in the starting zones. This makes grabbing the grape barrels in Northshire abbey rediculously easy. Also I noticed the wolves you start killing in Northshire are now diseased and are being killed for their own good. PETA have taken over Azeroth?

Not sure how long it will be before I get to try the new Looking for Dungeon but I hear lots of great things about it. I also want to have the Peg the Pug pet! weirdly the idea of running with strangers is more appealing than running with those I know.

Haven't tried the new quest tracking or map changes as i am happy with carbonite.

Emails

Email #1 Solador

Hello Aprillian, Ash, and Varishna (sp?),

Please excuse my writing style... I tried to proof read it but I write the way I think, and that can sometimes be dangerous to your health.

My wife and I (Solador and Ostira) play exclusively together with a few exceptions.... we are allowed to do trade skills, farming, dailies etc separately but raiding, heroics and if we are on a lvling pair of toons anything that gains XP we do together. We have two pairs of characters that we focus on: Rogue / Mage, and our Bear Tank and Tree healer combo.

Below are some issues I would like to discuss:

Gear issue

If you would like I could generate you a gear list based on your spec that requires absolutely no raiding... not even heroics. This gear (with Argent Tournament, and other rep gear) will get you to the point where you will easily feel confident in your gear.... only thing that will be holding your back is your interest to move forward into heroics/raids etc...

This is easily accomplished via the program called "Rawr" This program is a must for a person wanting a one stop preview of what gear is an upgrade and where it can be obtained. An example is my bear tank, without ever once stepping into a heroic was able to obtain gear that made it possible (not easy mind you) for me to immediately start running Heroic Trail of the Champions. This program will tell you what items are an upgrade based on your spec, how to gem it, and how to enchant it for optimal results. Just let me know and I will do that for you... it will only take a few minutes.

Fear of 80

There is no need to be fearful of dinging 80. Game play does change a bit, but you will find the freedom of not needing to quest if you don't want to liberating. I always have found end game a sigh of relief, for I felt that now I could focus on whatever I wanted. Look at it as sort of retirement... you can continue questing if you want, or you can just sit on your lazy butt and fish up coins in the Dalaran wishing well.

False assumption 80 = end game raiding

Whenever I hear people put forth the idea that once you are 80 all that is left for you to do is raid...I cringe. Just as when you were leveling, that was not all there was to do... you could do all kinds of things. The same is to be said for end game. You can do all kinds of things: Trade skills, grind money for alts, achievements etc... there is plenty to do. So much so I promise you that even if you never raid you will always have something to do ingame that you will enjoy.

"Turkey Hunter"

In a recent episode I heard you mentioning that "OH! I just got the Turkey Hunter achievement!" Well.... I have some bad news... you referenced that you had killed 28 turkeys I believe, but the actual achievement is for killing 40 turkeys with no longer than 30 seconds expiring between each kill. Sad fact is, probably while you were looking in your achievements list etc to try to research this "turkey hunter" that popped over you head you went longer than 30 seconds and lost your shot at the achievement. This "turkey hunter" title that popped over you head happens every 10 turkeys (different title each 10) until you reach the 40. I was unable to complete this achievement after several attempts and many foul words!

Glanthor leaving

Well, all I can say here is that I am very sad! Many podcasts have tried to delve into WoW lore and every time that segment was one that got me mashing the fast forward button. However when I gave his segments a trail run I was hooked! He spoke about it with a true interest that was infectious. He also didn't recite the lore as if from a text... he spoke of it as if it were a subject that he had newly discovered and was now wanting to learn more. He will be missed!

If you will read this email within the first one or two emails that why Ashayo's bad rolling goes in my favor! I would so love to have me a little KT!

Email #2 from Shendryis

Dear Ctr Alt Wow,

I suffer from altaholism...... and I love it. I have my main, a female night elf Fury Tank named Shendryis. She is my favorite and so she gets the most attention. I also have a Dreanai Holy Pally named Xydam, a night elf Druid bear tank, Xylin and another night elf, this time a death knight. They are all 80. I am currently working on a Night elf Hunter girl, she is only 66..... i keep running out of rest xp so the going is reeeeeeeealy slow /cry. Anyways, I play the game with my girlfriend who lives on the other coast from me, im on the west coast and she lives on the east so wow is a wonderful way to hang out and have fun together. And for all those guys who play a female avatar i would like to put this bit of thought out there, All the male avatars are rather ugly..... so stop getting on all those poor guys who would rather play a pretty Night Elf female.... rather than a male, who can fit his whole hand around his head.... ^-^ Anyways, I really love your guys podcast and I miss Glanthur :( being a fellow alliance player I really miss him alot.....

P.S. Even tho I am alliance, I am 21 and most of my guild is either around my age or older..... but i think that might be a fluke >.> because there are alot of children on the server /sigh

Email #A from Patrick

Howdy guys,

I believe Ashayo was on at the time I left. It was the dreaded time of the ridicules queue times and Earthen Ring was the longest wait time of all the realms. But I found that I just can not find a decent guild. I had a lot of fun while in AIE so I wanted to come back. What can I say, I am fan boy to your podcast and The Instance so it was only natural that I want to come back.

Also, Aprillian, my 80 is an Alliance Dwarf warrior and I own my own home (well the bank does in reality), however when I piss off my wife, I often find myself sleeping in the basement, but that is a conversation for anther time.

I was laughing my butt off listing to you guys pronounce my toons name. I pronounce it like Pill & Gander = Pilgander. Folks around my cubical though I was nutz.

I though I heard my name was drawn in your weekly e-mail drawing. I am flattered that I won but I am not a collateral of pets and I pay for my account in 6 month intervals, so please pass this on to another.

Best Regards

Patrick

Email #3 from Ryn

Hello Ashayo, Aprillian, and Vrishna!

I've been listening to your show for about a month now, and i think its very entertaining :) It's actually all that keeps me alive while i am at work. Im new at the whole podcast thing, so if this letter sucks i am so sorry!

First of all, i will tell you about myself... I play an 80 Resto Druid on the alliance side. I started out as horde Pre-BC and through many complications, jumped from account to account. :) most of my friends play on Nordrassil, so thats where i made my recent character. I love alts! though im not as hardcore about it as aprillian ... hehe. i only use one account at a time. Currently i have a 62 mage, 62 warlock, and a 21 hunter on the Horde. Alliance i have an 80 druid, 80 rogue, 55 mage, and my bank alt of course (1 paladin). Alliance is great once you get to run with actual people, not all of them are children. I myself am 20 years old, and i play with my boyfriend who is 21. My guild is actually full of people over the age of 30. I will say though, the alliance on my server can not pvp worth S***. I think its a curse, i can not win a battleground ever!

I think that aprillian should level something on the alliance side, seriously. you might find that the jokes you make about us on your podcast arent as legit as you portray. They can be just as fun and open minded as the Horde, and honestly both sides have their immature, young children running around and spamming trade. That is why you have the option to turn off trade chat. :)

Also it makes me really happy to hear that there are other girls that play WoW! Aprillian and Temp you guys are awesome! I always get the usual guy jokes on vent about my voice and what not, and there are all those jerks in trade saying that girls arent smart enough to play games. If your podcast wasnt PG i would say that they could kiss my A**.

Keep up the work! great podcast!!!! and i will miss the lore segments from Glanthur. :( Cant wait to hear more about Aprillian and Vrishna.

Sincerely

Valryn (Ryn for short)Server: Nordrassil

Email #B from Kurly

Thanks for the great time on the Podcast! It was an honor. Everyone in my guild listend and I think you may have a few more fans!! So....the patch is live and the servers are down...and yes I am going nuts!! I was reading through some of the patch notes, and it does look like its going to be amazing. I am considering re-rolling my Pally since I changer her from Ret to Holy, but she runs out of mana to fast. Last night out guild ran Violet Hold and Old Kingdom on our Not So Much Baby toons. There are five of us that are consistent players and each of the five of us have a few different toons we can use for different group make up....so fun!!

I have been going back and forth on my hunter between Beast Master and Marksmanship. When I am doing Marks my pet seems to die a lot, but I do a lot of damage, whereas beast master the pet does a lot of work, but my damage is so so.....oh to choose!!

Anyway, thanks again for the great podcast!!

Time for some tea!!

XOXO

Kurly

Email #C from Karen

Hey control-alt-wow crew,

Thought I'd chime in on how I stay busy in WoW, though as an altaholic it's really hard to get bored. Seems that the players complaining of boredom are all single toon players because when you have a lot of toons, it's easy to find stuff to do.

I currently have three 80's (the first time I've had more than two toons at max level) and I'm sort of trying to gear them up for instancing, though we don't instance very often.

I have two pet collectors: one on horde, one on alliance. They currently have 101 and 76 pets respectively. The plethora of pets that Blizz has given away lately has helped enormously. That core hound pup (yes, I finally attached an authenticator to my account to get it, great social engineering by Blizzard) is the best pet ever!

And I've decided that I'd like to level up at least one of every race and every class. My toons are split over two servers and both factions and I have a couple of duplicates, but it can take a lot of time to get the right combination of race/class/name for each toon. Oddly enough I'm still playing my first two toons, but have actually created and purged quite a few others in my quest to have one of each class and race.

Thank goodness for Death Knights because I finally found a perfect class for my gnome. She runs around causing disease and blight with her Lil' K.T. and ghoul trailing her. The new races will give me a chance to make a shaman (goblin) and a warlock (worg).

So my 80's are busily grinding Argent Tournament dailies to buy heirlooms for all the alts below them because I'm not leveling anyone again without the 20% experience boost.

I have found that concentrating on a single leveling toon works best. I got my tauren druid to 80 quicker than I expected. I'm also trying to do zones that I didn't do the first or second time around and everyone gets flying as soon as possible.

Great podcast, as usual. I miss Glanthur, but enjoy hearing from Vrishna and Jeppy (and Aprillian and Ashayo also, of course),

For the Horde and Glory to the Alliance!

Karen

Email #4 from Makling

hello ctrlaltwow crew, makiling here

i had listened to your show earlier this week, and wanted to write to you then and there, but the patch came up and boy do i have some stories to tell.

i really really love the new dungeon finder. it matches my now casual play style (i have accepted the fact that i may never be able to do hardcore raiding, thus the casual status). i like how i can sit down, queue for a random, dungeon, get in, get out, and say thank you for the group. it was like that for my mage and my priest on the first day, but lately im finding that it is immensely quicker for my priest to get into a group than my mage. it literally takes seconds when i queue as a healer, whereas im finding that my mage can go and do a lot of dailies before he gets a group. i can just imagine, in our realm there is a ratio of tanks to heals to dps of around 1:2:5, but now that number is multiplied by 10 across the battlegroup. so for now, im getting a lot of game time on my priest. and its good because she's getting phat loots from the new heroic dungons.

this morning my druid dinged 70 from doing the kaluak dailies in borean tundra. i havent been logging on to her lately, but i did find that doing the random dungeon on her rewards 2 triumph badges. i was wondering if you guys tried the random dungeon finder on lower level toons (burning crusade or classic wow) and if they reward emblems too. if they do, then that would be awesome because you can save up emblems even before hitting 80, then buy up the gear you need when you ding 80.

enchanting right now is a booming business with all the new gear rolling out from the new dungeons. im just bummed out that i cant take advantage of it because im not online that often. one more thing i love about the patch is the boa enchants from the northrend factions. its a good thing my mage is exalted with the major factions. no more mandatory rep grinding on alts =)

Shout Outs & Thank You

hope everyone is well and nice to hear Sir Knight Eljeppy on the last few shows.

Busy few weeks for me after thanksgiving week and being sick; busy in wow and as always real life things.

I have been able to get back to doing usual dailies and heroics and some raids.

But of course the exciting news is the new patch, Ice Crown Citidal

Hope everyone gets a chance to check it out because I like!!!

I know its new and shiny and phat loots! but so far I like the instances, yes even the last one, something about my reflection or something (halls of reflection). I hope we can have Glanthur back soon to go into the lore and all the stories behind the dungeons. Just so much better reads that to you, you know :)

I first ran the ICC instances on regular wednesday night as Tuesday is always fail, in my opinion.

Oh and of course the new LFG, that is also MO LIKE!

So far so good, minus the first patch day fail, it is working pretty well; you may not always get grouped up with the classes you want but I have had nice people from other servers so far.

So after a nice regular run I tried Heroics ICC with some guildies and one other which resulted in fail in the 2nd instance, Pit of Saron is it. I do apologize but I do not have all of the correct names at my disposal as I am writing this at work (don't tell anyone :))

On my other attempts this week thankfully I was able to complete them and I like the loots on regular and heroics.

Many people say that Blizz has made the game too easy, passing out gear and badges like its candy but I disagree.

They are catering to the majority, which is not the hardcore raiders, its well MO, and others like me (I do hope no one is exactly like me that would be scary).

I have also done Onyxia 10/25 a handful of times, 3-2, 3 wins and 2 fails and failed 10-TOC and we will be attempting the Ice Crown raid this evening, Friday night.

Well for me that is a crazy busy wow week and half!

OH yes Tuesday was also crying over broken addons but thanks to all the addon developers most of them were fixed fairly quickly.

I know I am really tied to the addons I use. Take healbot, I dont care if someone says (read this in your old man voice) "back in my day we used the Wow UI to heal raids!"

for me without healbot I might as well just use bandages. ok ok its not that bad but the healers know what I mean and I know Hypnatoid does not ( did i spell his name correctly?)

Ok I think that is enough from me. Thank you to Ashayo for correcting my grammar and mo knows many things but mo does not know grammar. I wish spell check would do grammar check as well.

Happy wowing, checkout the new instances, even on regular and LFG and what ever else you wish!

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Aprillian, Glanthur and Ashayo discuss another week of playing World of Warcraft, Blizzard's great MMORPG. Contest Ongoing send an email to ctrlaltwow@gmail.com telling us how you play WoW, either as an altaholic or dealing with it in your family life to being placed in a drawing for a month free of WoW or a $10 iTunes Gift Card or an Authenticator, they are back in the store.

Plenty of tanking practice on Pud, including H DTK, ToC a-plenty, and a frustrating attempt at H HoL.

Revered with Argent Crusade - head tank enchant, mace, JC design

Jeppy

It has been the week of the long knives at Jeppy manor. Many a brave toon has felt the humiliation of being stripped of all their worldy goods and left destitute and naked in whatever town they call home.

This is all part of project what was I thinking! All the gold and stuff has been filtered back to those who will be making it to through to the next round of toon idol.

On Tuesday I spent a wee while on JubJub and the wave of friendliness made me feel so happy. I will definitely be pushing the 3 level 73 DKs upto 80 in the near future (or at least 2 of them)

However my initial focus is going to be on a 2 man NELF hunter team (Karlayne and Farlayne) over on Boulderfist. Currently they are both level 63 and hitting outlands. Flying at 60 has been a real joy. Suffered several serial gankings but am taking it on the chin.

I will move between them and Boulderfist team 2. These are human pallys (Saxxon and Britannic). Currently sat at 64 but still in hellfire.

I still have the RAF itch and have a couple of unactivated accounts but have so far resisted. Not sure how much longer that will last though.

Emails

Email #1 from Makling

hey guys, makiling here

i was finally able to listen to your latest episode after what seemed like forever before the podbean servers came up. it was great hearing from jeppy again.

regarding the druid questions from Leralonde, i would really want to help her dps but my druid is still level 67 and have not had all the abilities unlocked. im sure the rotation i have now will change for when i hit 80, so maybe i can talk about that when that happens.

i was able to get the pilgrim title on my mage, and leveled cooking on my priest. i had a ton of stuff happening irl, so i wasnt able to take advantage of the easy cooking levels on all my toons.

but i did get the venomhide ravasaur on my druid so i can finally get rid of the kodo. i like the kodo, but not on taurens. they're too big to properly fit through doors, and although that was funny for a while, it got really annoying really quick.

now that the pilgrims week is over, i can focus on leveling my druid. she's halfway through 67, and hopefully she'll hit northrend soon. i remember not too long ago when i was writing to you that my priest was about to hit northrend. and now my third toon is about the get there too /reminisce

Bidkar the 80 mage here. I haven't done much in game the last few weeks but here's the big run down. This is a reworking of a previous email that I didn't get off in time before.

I leveled my hunter, Yancy, from 4 to 20. I am surprised by how much I like playing a hunter. I have picked out a wolf for my pet. I named her Lucy after my dog who passed away. The wolf does funny things just like she used to do and the random howl is great. I have a cat named "Ookla", but I basically have the cat just so I can name it "Ookla"(from Thundarr the Barbarian, the coolest cartoon ever!) Leveled up my druid to 37. I want to level him faster just because I really want the druid flight form, it looks so cool.

I leveled my warlock, Allerea, from 27 to 61. I have her "twinked" out in a heirloom shoulders, chest, staff and trinkets. She's sitting in Thrallmar right now working on her rested xp. There is no way I'm going thru Outland on regular xp. The only zones I like are Nagrand and Zangarmarsh and I want to be done by the time I finish Nagrand.

I moved my death knight from Auchindoun to Borean Tundra to be with my mage. She has the inscription skill and I didn't want to level that up again. I guess I'm staying on Borean Tundra. I like Auchindoun better, but I am too much of a wimp for PVP! I had to change her name though. She was named Viha (Finnish for anger) but they said I couldn't use that name so now she is Altheah. She is only level 70 so I take her out to the Sholazar Basin to pick her herbs. Lots of Adder's tongue and lots of neutral mobs, can't beat that! I don't plan on leveling her unless I run out of things to do. I just can't get into that Death Knight groove.

I've been doing dailies on my mage and paladin. I've cut down to doing just the Argent Tournament dailies. I can't take that rep grind anymore. I would rather not play the game than do reputation grinds. The tournament gives me the Champion Seals I can use to buy the heirlooms for my alts. I like the game when I'm leveling my alts and professions and that's how I will be playing for awhile.

Thanks for the follow Ashayo! I didn't think I would like Twitter, but it's kind of fun!

Great show every week, keep up the good work!

For the Horde and For Glanthur!

Bidkar and his many alts.

Email #B from Nevik

Greetings Aprillian, Ashayo, and Vrishna

I'm not sure what happened, but it appears my last email was eaten by the internets, so even though this is now 2 shows late I wanted to wish Aprillian a HUGE CONGRATULATIONS on dinging 80! (Has Ashayo bought you a mechano-hog yet?) With that order of business squared away let's get on with the email.

I wanted to once again thank all of you for giving me the opportunity to share and celebrate the life of my friend, Killdawabbit. It hasn't been easy, but the support I've received has been touching and has uplifted my spirits. Killdawabbit will always live on in my heart and his life has inspired me to live life to the fullest.

As you might gather, this past week has not given me much opportunity to log in and play. Instead I've been working hard to finish up the tribute site to honor Killdawabbit. I'll soon be back in-game especially since patch 3.3 is just around the corner.

hey guys, this is Patrick (from Bank of America). haven't wrote in a while.

I just moved my level 40 pally from Wyrm' Rest to Earthen Ring !! his name is Pilgander

I am hoping to join AIE, if you will have me back

I am loving the pally

Best RegardsPatrick

Shout Outs & Thank You

Momomoments

Hello all,

hope your Thanksgiving was a great one and for all people outside of the US hope your past week was great!

Of course I did pig out with a feast in real life however with a real life curse/illness whichever you wish to call it my wow time was pretty much down to just a few log ins in the past week.

I have had this bad cough which turned out to be bronchitis which basically makes you cough your lungs out and in turn gives a nice headache and back pain.

But feeling better today and hope I can get some wow time in this week.

I did part of the Pilgrims bounty, made some of the recipes but that is pretty much it, another seasonal achievement not completed by mo, its a theme, a reoccurring theme but its ok, what is the end achievement for the bounty anyways?

I Had read some tweets about people getting a turkey pet, was that it?

I will keep it short this week as I do not have much else to say about my wow time.

Also me and my brother hooked up the old school sega console and had some fun with that Thursday.

Too bad we dont have an atari I would totally play that as well.

What old school game (s) do you all like?

I may get Diablo II again as I have lost the game or perhaps warcraft III :)

V the show finished its brief 4 episode 2009 season and I liked it a lot, still like it over Flashforward.

I am also a big fan of Lost and 24.

Well that is all Mo wrote, I will have a more interesting email to you next week and will be all healed up to do the healing as I usually do. Just wish sometimes we had a healing potion in real life, Im not kidding!

Tell me you would not drink it when you are getting a sore throat or something.

Hello Podbean. I rushed through editing my latest episode and quickly put it up yesterday. And now no one can access my feed. I can't even access my account. http://ctrlaltwow.podbean.com/admin/ is not responding. I was total you are working on it. How much longer?

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Aprillian, Glanthur and Ashayo discuss another week of playing World of Warcraft, Blizzard's great MMORPG. Contest Ongoing send an email to ctrlaltwow@gmail.com telling us how you play WoW, either as an altaholic or dealing with it in your family life to being placed in a drawing for a month free of WoW or a $10 iTunes Gift Card or an Authenticator, they are back in the store.

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Going crazy getting cooking on as many alts as possible. Hopping servers. Went over to JT

Decided to make the most of the Sharing buff. Took Epril & Auruk around to do over 10 dailies. Waited to turn them in until I did the Sharing

Turkey part the hardest. Made a macro on hunter Sebastian that works like a charm.

Wanted to level on ER Ally toon. Level 10 bank toon dinged 11. But couldn't get Turkeys. Searched for Ally DK but it was hard

Did Exador For The Horde on Aprillian with AIE, thanks for the invite Lanc

Took Epril and Auruk out to the dragon wastes to kill elite worms for 5k a pop. And tried to take the to the cooking dailies every day as well.

Felt guilty killing the Lonely Turkey. Hardest part, but the rewards, can get up to 350 with Turkeys and then get all the recipes in Dal and use all that fish that's been cluttering up Auruk's bags.

Had a dilemna, only ally toons on same account, had a bunch of turkeys on my DK on JT but couldn't get it to her. Created a human and ran her to SW, wicked easy. At one point I was running a toon through the tram from SW to IF and at the same time on a different server, another toon from IF to SW.

Got the Turkey Hunter thingy on several toons. No achievement

Realized I could jump from fp to first level at TB

Ashayo

Pilgrim's Bounty - Killing 40 turkeys on the 1st couple of days was impossible. Did they up the number and/or re-spawn rate - Didn't realise turker shooter is 1 shot - 350 cooking - easy as pie! - Orgrimmar chairs bugged ; required server restart - Lots of running around ; fantastic to do it with a mage - Dual boxed setthek halls on Ashayo / Asheal - Just did it on Ashayo and Pud- Cooking Daily on Pud. Cooking award in the bag 3 days running, and captain rumsey's lager recipe in the 4th

10 Man Raiding- Week off this week, but got 25 people together and took down Anub in ToC from last week. Got him down, which was cool because it was Ravanna's last night with us as raid leader. And I rolled a 99 on [Trophy of the Crusade] - so a tier piece! - Ran ZG/ZA instead of 10 man raid - Got Mojo pet

ToC farming - mail attack boots dropped after Wych left - twice! - ToC over and over until a hunter piece *finally* dropped for Wych. Straddle pretty much got a complete new set of gear.

Crazy Train - 3 bosses in Mount Hyjal. Lots of fun. Lots of AOE

Misc- Run OS with PoH. I came in as 10th, and ended up tanking. We one shot her - but I died at 2% and when she went down, only 1 rogue was left standing. epic. - Tanked H VH. Did ok. - H UP - persisted thru gauntlet , got there. Bugger healing on shaman - H Azjol'nerub - gave up on 1st boss.- H Drak'tharon - wiping on Dred, but fine once we cleared adds.

Weekly Tank Shopping - Had the [Breastplate of the White Knight] made. Crusader orbs down to 350g. - For 19 emblem of conquest, got a great level 226 tanking neck peice. Massive upgrade.

Misc- Discovered Ashayo had been neglected - under hit cap from upgrades without hit, and a broken meta gem. Spent a bunch of triumph badges on bracers and gloves - COOP Black Friay. Awesome fun taking control of SW and other cities. - Pud bought first oracle egg

- Picked up a 2H mace, but had never skilled up.- NW of Argent Vanguard are Reanimated Crusader. Great to skill up on because they heal themselves.- Also noticed strange behaviour of DK runes. I was trying to use Death Strike to heal myself, but it was missing due to low skill. In that case, it didn't consume the rune. Also, you get 2 skillup points per swing. Went from 1 to 360 on one mob

Emails

Email #1 from Leralonde

Hi Glanthur, Ashayo and Aprillian,

i totally forgot to put my question in my last email i had send. i have a druid question for Ashayo. im feral, and i think i have reasonable gear (agility, strength stamina, mostly agility). But recently i'm using a dps meter and i saw that in several dungeons i was at the bottom of the dps meter!

i use, when unsthealted, shred,claw and ferocius bite. i dont have talentpoint in mangle. Should i do that? Is it my rotation that sucks (can i say that on your show?) im a former boomkin and i want back at the dps top in feral.

can you help me?

tnx

Leralonde lvl 78 druid tauren from the EU.

Email #2 from Makling

hello ctrlaltwow crew!

i just listened to your show, and at first i was sad about the news of glanthur's leave from the game, but i was also glad that he is off to a place where he feels will make him better as a person. so to glanthur, good luck to you and we hope to hear from you soon!

hopefully by the time this get read on your show, aprillian would have done some heroics and maybe some raids!

my week in wow was mostly spent leveling my druid, who at the time of writing is now level 65. my original plan was to go balance and resto, so i wouldnt need different gear sets, but i find balance sooo hard to use while leveling..! i was really surprised by that finding, considering that i had been playing caster types for the longest time. even with the spellpower heirlooms, i find that the balance druid has a harder time killing mobs compared to when i was leveling my priest or mage. so i then decided to spend my emblems, and bought heirloom leather with attack power, and specced to feral cat form. as i had not leveled a melee class, the feral druid was quite a unique experience. most of my time was spent reading up on rotations and configuring macros. i have to say, the druid has some of the most complicated macros i have seen. i have a macro that will choose the best travel form at any given situation, and a macro that will change you to cat, then stealth, then do a pounce all in one button! i got it all from researching the druid websites and combined the stuff i needed. one other thing i learned is that tree form is terrible in bgs, and cat form is the way to go! stealthing to a flag in wsg, then running across the field in travel form for the win!

but my leveling time has been interrupted by the pilgims bounty. not that its a bad thing, but with my limited wow time, i can only do so much in a day so prioritizing is necessary. and since this is a seasonal thing, this gets top priority. im keeping my fingers crossed, and hopefully i get all of them done by your next show. but if i dont, then better luck for me next year.

and finally, i got my priest honored with the oracles and bought her first egg! /fingerscrossed for a green protodrake! i havent heard from any of aprillian's toons in northrend if she has been doing the oracle dailies, or am i wrong?

keep up the good work guys,

for the horde and for glanthur!

Email #3 from Avarynne

Hello!

My husband (Nevik) has been bugging me, errr, reminding me to share my WoW experience with you all since he is excited about finally getting me into the game, so...

First, let me start with a brief history of gaming and our relationship. There was a lot of negativity that surrounded this concrete interest of his in MMOs in particular. Even though I had enjoyed playing Diablo in the past and was not completely against gaming, there had been a few rough patches regarding his level of commitment to games such as Final Fantasy and WoW, and each of our perceptions that had negatively impacted our relationship. We have since worked through these and thinking back of those times now, I wish I had spent more time getting to know more of the reasons behind his interest and less time criticizing them.

Moving on...

Initially, I didn't start to play WoW for the sake of playing, but rather for the agreed-upon "incentive" involved after each session of playing. (I'm sure you can guess what kind of incentive I speak of...*wink, wink*...)

Anyway, after playing for a few weeks the game actually started to grow on me and I felt as though my motivations for participating were shifting. I accepted my husband's recommendations wholeheartedly, as he was obviously more experienced, and started playing a warlock under affliction. As we played together in the beginning, he with his tank paladin and I with my warlock, I was a bit disappointed that I was not able to really get in there and cause much damage mainly because of the slow casting and lower hp/armor. I am the kind of person that likes to see results and I guess you could say I was frustrated. Eventually, as I leveled up a bit and after the recommendation to switch my spec over to destruction, I have been much happier with my 'lock. Seeing the big numbers was a much more fun and rewarding experience for me.

I have only been playing for a short while, but can already tell that I will surely be a lifelong fan of the game. I have also started playing a paladin so I can experience being on the front line and learning how to get around on my own (as opposed to playing the 'lock and the hubby sort of running the show). I also have to say that I am appreciative of the hubby being so patient with me, the noob. I know he wants me to have an enjoyable experience. He also continues to help me answer all the questions I have (and there have been many!)

AND I have also been enjoying listening to some of your lovely, informational podcasts and can add this to the bundle of great new experiences I've gained since playing WoW.

Thanks for listening!

Avarynne

Email #4 from Inacan

Hey guys,

I hope you are all well.

I am in the middle of an identity crisis. I have a Rogue, a Pali and a Druid all at 80. I can't figure out what to play on any given day. I know you are thinking QQ more three 80s but this situation is killing my play time. I find myself riding in circles around Dalaran on a mount on any given toon and accomplishing nothing. On my Pali I have a nice PVE raiding set and I am working on a tanking set and a PVP set. My Rogue is in Nax gear and she longs for badge gear and whispers to me that she isn't getting her fair share of play time and is in need of badges. She has a short temper and makes wild statements about taking vengence on my other 80s while I'm logged out. My healing druid has a couple of crafted purples and a nice healing mace, but is mostly still in blues. That Druid just sits in the corner frowning at me with those big sad cow eyes, longing for a run through Heroic Violet Hold or even a Heroic Nexus. The guilt is becoming too much to handle and I have nightmares about toon mutiny. I may log on some day to find all my toons have run away from home.

On second thought maybe there are just too many distractions in my life that are taking away my Wow time. Perhaps if I cut sleeping down to 2 hours a night and got rid of that pesky 40 hour a week job I could get things done. If I installed a microwave in my home office and lived on "Hot Pockets" I could cut grocery shopping time and meal prep time both at the same time. If I could just hit on one of these stupid lottery tickets I could pay someone to play my toons while I sleep those two hours.

Anyway its all too much to figure out today.....Any suggestions?

Enjoy your week!!

Ginsue, Inacan and Doncowleone

P.S. Glanthur, I was kidding about the Itunes gift card you owe me. You didn't have to take time off to avoid me. Good luck in all the things you are making time to do and if you find yourself bored....could you run my druid through H VH?

Email #5 from Fayth

Hey you four!

Just wanted to drop a note to say hello to all of you! While various circumstances and time constraints have put my WoW life into a hiatus for a couple months, I'll still be listening to Ctrl Alt WoW without fail. Glanthur I'm loving the lore segments and can't wait to hear more. Aprillian and Vrishna you'll both keep reminding me how much fun the game can be with friends and family and it's not all about loot and achievements. Ashayo, I'm counting on you, especially, to recount stories of your priest. That class is truly where my heart is when it comes to WoW.

And that leads me to ask a question before I fade into a life sans Azeroth - If Blizzard told us we could only have *one* character for the rest of the game, who would you all choose?

Take care everyone!

./logout, Fayth

P.S. the crying orc on the account cancellation page is pretty sad. :(Email #6 from Caleb

Dear Aprillian, Ashayo, Glanthur and Vrishna,

I have been meaning to write you for quite some time to tell you how much I enjoy your podcast. Being an alt-aholic myself, your views on the game are refreshing from some of the more hardcore podcasts out there who prefer to criticize the game instead of appreciate the many wonderful opportunities that Blizzard has offered us. Now I don\'t want to sound like a fanboy, in fact, I see many areas where WOW could be improved, but overall it is a wonderful game and has added a lot to my life.So, a little about myself. As I said I am an alt-aholic and I love playing on both the Alliance and Horde. When I first started playing, I was an Alliance shaman on Earthen Ring, after hearing the Instance, I new I needed to make a Horde toon also, and it being my server made it easy. So I have a Paladin and a Druid in AIE. My Druid is önnab and my Paladan is Nannabo. On the Alliance side, my brothers and I (who are also in AIE) wanted to make sure we got to experience the whole guild leveling system coming in Cataclysm, so we started a guild called Döda Pà Sikte which means Slay on Sight in Swedish. On the Alliance I have all the other classes in the game above level 60 but my two mains are a level 80 Druid named Ripit and a level 80 Shaman called Shotok. I really enjoy the leveling process and can\'t wait for Cataclysm to be able to start a Goblin Shaman. My one wish would be something I know that you and many others have discussed before. I really want more then 10 char acter slots per server so that I can have one of each class on each side. I would even pay for this service, either in a one time mini transaction or through a small monthly upgrade.I don\'t want to take too much of your time but if you ever see önnab or Nannabo on the Horde side and you need help with anything, just whisper me and I would be happy to help in any way I can.Also, if you happen to want to try the Alliance a little, especially when Cataclysm hits, make sure to look me up. I would love to help any of you with gear, gems, or instances. Döda Pà Sitke is always looking for new members.